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Morinda citrifolia L.
Synonym
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:
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Morinda citrifolia var. bracteata
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Family
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:
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Rubiaceae
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Local name
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English-Great Morinda
Malayalam - kadapilavu
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Flowering
and fruiting period
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:
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July-November
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Distribution
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:
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Indo-Malesia to Australia
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Distribution
in Kerala
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:
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Kottayam, Alappuzha, Kasaragode, Kannur,
Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram, Kozhikkode,
Ernakulam, Thrissur
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Habitat
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:
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Waste places and mangrove forests.
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Uses
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Used
as garden plant
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Key botanical characters :
Evergreen shrubs or small crooked trees, 3-8 m high; bark
greyish or yellowish- brown, shallowly fissured, glabrous;
branchlets quandrangular. Leaves simple, opposite, elliptic-lanceolate, entire, acute to shortly acuminate to apex, cuneate at
base, pinnately nerved, glabrous; stipules variable
in size and shape, broadly triangular. Flowers bisexual, fragrant, in dense
globose heads, connate by the calyces, peduncle 1-4 cm long, opposite to
normally developed leaves. Calyx tube hemispheric, limb truncate. Corolla
funnel-shaped, lobes 5 lanceolate, acute. Stamens 5,
inserted on the mouth of the corolla; filaments hairy. Ovary 2-celled, ovule
solitary; stigma bilobed. Fruit an ovoid syncarp of pyramidal, 2-seeded
drupes, yellow-white; seeds black, with hard albumen and
distinct air chamber.
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